If Bill Vander Zalm's role at the First Ministers' Conferences is to explain the hard bits to Don Getty, we may have need of him yet. For one thing, Getty appears on track for another win in Alberta. For another, as far as the premiers' handiwork on Meech Lake is concerned, it seems they're all in need of someone to explain the hard bits.

We have first, of course, the wounded cries over Robert Bourassa's interpretation of the ''distinct society'' clause as an instrument for the furtherance of a unilingual state in Quebec, if need be at the expense of the charter. Apparently, Bourassa's seatmates thought it was all just something to do with Bonhomme Carnaval and Mon Oncle Antoine.

Likewise, no one seems to know for certain whether the deadline for ratification of the accord is three years, as assumed, or indefinite. It depends on which amendments one looks at.

We only really reach the ludicrous, however, when Senator Lowell Murray, minister of state for Federal-Provincial Relations, and the government of Alberta are at odds over whether the ''list'' of prospective Senate appointments, to be submitted by the provinces under the accord, must include several names, or can be just one. How many names are in a list? How long is a string?

It is reassuring to know, at least, that resolution of these theological questions is in the hands of Gary Filmon and Frank McKenna. Yet even these divines may perhaps be unequal to the task. The premier of Manitoba wants some sort of parallel agreement on Senate reform as a precondition of approval, but offers no guidance on what it might entail. The premier of New Brunswick suggests an amendment protecting minority language rights be inserted, but takes us no further.

INVITE SUGGESTIONS

Perhaps the premiers could invite suggestions from the public, a contest in the schools perhaps, or in the pages of our magazines, with a bottle of fine quality champagne for the winner. I offer my own entry briefly here.

On Senate reform, the ''Triple E'' formula is a nonstarter. There is not the slightest chance that Ontario or Quebec would accept equal representation in an elected chamber. It's not even clear it would be desirable. At the same time, the West will not stand for an Upper House as centrally controlled as the Commons. Solution: elect an equal number of senators from each province, say six, allocated according to the proportion of the popular vote obtained by each party. But elect also six members in separate nationwide elections, each of whom would command 10 votes.

This proposal, it seems to me, offers a compromise which involves no direct retreat from the principle of equal representation the West demands, yet moderates the disproportionate influence the small provinces would then wield. The national senators would form a sort of political Supreme Court within the Upper House, rather like the Law Lords. They alone would have the sort of national mandate a U.S. President has, an element lacking in Canada. They would thus ensure a national perspective carried decisive sway in the midst of provincial power-broking.

As for language rights, the ''distinct society'' clause will have to go. If the premiers and the Prime Minister really believe in the pieties they have expressed with regard to minority rights, then they should have no problem with the following in its place:

''The Constitution of Canada shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the recognition of the existence of minorities speaking one of the official languages within jurisdictions in which the majority speaks the other, both within Canada, and within each province. It is the role of the Parliament of Canada and the provincial legislatures to preserve and promote that fundamental characteristic of Canada, in a manner consistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.''

Or words to that effect. This would recognize the right and responsibility to protect the French language within Canada, not only on the part of Quebec, but equally of all the provinces and of Ottawa. At the same time, it would recognize the equal and concomitant obligation of each province, Quebec or any other, to protect its linguistic minorities.

It would make explicit the links between Quebec and French-speaking minorities across the country, as one indivisible integrity that is French Canada, itself bound inseparably to English Canada. Majorities and minorities cleaving together, one nation under the supreme law of the charter; and I claim my bottle of fine quality champagne.